


Shore Leave

by songofsunset



Series: Redshirts (Wizard Trek) [3]
Category: Star Trek, Young Wizards - Diane Duane
Genre: Drinking, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-01
Updated: 2016-12-01
Packaged: 2018-09-03 12:36:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8714185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/songofsunset/pseuds/songofsunset
Summary: Inspired by a tweet by a friend "wise life advice from myself: 'Listen don't drink and mess with the fabric of spacetime' "





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [222Ravens](https://archiveofourown.org/users/222Ravens/gifts).



“Th’fucking problem,” Jans said, gesturing broadly and sloshing his neon blue drink onto an already sodden pile of napkins, “Th’fucking problem is the fragging sublimination matrix.”

“I see,” said Randall gravely, and added a handful of fresh napkins to the pile. Jans was fairly sure that Randall did not in fact see, based on the amused tolerance in his smile, but as long as Randall was still nodding sympathetically, Jans was willing to take it. 

The bar was dark and full of writhing aliens and weirdly scented smoke and flashing lights, and Randall had been 90% sure that it wasn’t strictly federation legal, persay, but it was the last night of shore leave and they had both decided to just go with it. 

Their commanding officer was currently flirting with the bartender, so if anyone got in trouble for this escapade, it would be her. 

“Th’fucking /matrix/” Jans said again, tapping his glass against the counter for emphasis. More blue liquid spilled out, and Jans stared at it for a moment, transfixed as it glittered in the lights of the bar like an impressionist sculpture of a planetside constellation.

Then Randall nudged a glass of water into his hand, and Jans blinked at it for a moment before downing half of it in one go. “I just-“ he said, sipping the rest and thinking longingly of a simple project that had so unpredictably become impossible. “If we could just, tweak how the capacitors function, or reroute the intrapolar systems, or /something/...” 

The music thudded loudly in his ears, and Jans’ stomach roiled, as though finally realizing the sort of shit he’d been pouring into it all night. He leaned into Randall’s shoulder with a sigh, finding a brief moment of solace in the steady support of his best friend, the coolness of the water glass, the flimsy darkness behind his own eyelids. 

“I just wish this project would work.” Jans said finally, sighing. “I just really want it to work, but it just- can’t, not without violating the laws of physics or something.” Randall’s strong arm was around his shoulders now, warm and firm and- Jans looked up at Randall, at the stubble on his jaw and the way his face shone in the transient darkness of the bar, less like the glitter of atmosphere-filtered stars and more like the jewel-sharp radiance of stars in space, unstopped, unencumbered, burning, burning, forever into the night-

Randall reached for Jans’ drink and downed the last of it in one swallow.

“Let’s get to bed, buddy,” he said, hoisting both of them to their feet, and Jans just leaned into him. “You’ve got a shift tomorrow, and you’ll need to be on your feet. 

“‘Kay,” Jans mumbled, and that was about all he remembered from the rest of the night.

———

The next day, Jans woke up to aspirin and water on his bedside table, and a note from Randall about a specific equation that might solve his problem. He blinked at it groggily, then stared at it, then blinked at it harder- then grabbed the note and dashed down to engineering, still half-dressed and trailing bits of his uniform behind him. 

———

Randall woke up to a raised eyebrow from his Advisory slash Commanding Officer, and a note in his file that he is to refrain from drunkenly fiddling with engineering projects, especially if he’s using wizardry. Later that day, Randall spent a moment at the window of the secondary engineering lab watching Jans shoulder deep in wires and goo and beaming like all his birthdays had come at once, and called it worth it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ......Okay look. Look, there just wasn't enough spacetime shenanigans so I accidentally wrote a second chapter 3 times as long as the original. 
> 
> These things just happen sometimes okay

Randall was a linguist.

And he quite enjoyed being a linguist, generally speaking. Whether he was tweaking the translators or providing necessary nuance to a first contact mission, he always felt like he was contributing something worthwhile. But sometimes, very occasionally, he’d come up against a task and find his skill set lacking.

It is a bad idea to do wizardry while drunk. Categorically, your reflexes are slowed and your judgment is off, and enough skills necessary to a successful intervention are impaired while intoxicated that only wizards who are caught off-guard, or who, for the sake of their mission, are deliberately seeking an altered mind-state, tend to go on errantry with alcohol in their system.

But, this wasn’t errantry. This was just- a hobby, if you would. Nothing dangerous. And besides, Randall wasn’t even that drunk, he’d only had a handful of drinks, he’d spent most of his night watching Jans get more and more maudlin and more and more shitfaced. And sure, Randall hadn’t been totally sure what was in the drinks they were being given (nothing catastrophically poisonous, said the ongoing scanning routine he’d had running) but it couldn’t have been _that_ strong!

Jans was just- drunk. And sad about this project. And Randall wanted to help him. Randall dragged Jans back to the ship and put him to bed, making sure he was safe and ready for tomorrow- and then Randall got to work.

Avoiding the security systems in engineering took just few words whispered to the scanners that he really wasn’t important, wasn’t out of place, no need to go on alert for little old him, and had he mentioned how hard they were working and what a good job they were doing?

If security systems could preen, the system in the engineering lab would have been preening by the time Randall was done with it, but as it was, they just sort of buzzed delightedly, and… forgot to tell the verification system that anyone had come by just now.

Randall made his way through the darkened engineering deck, slipping past a few alcoves filled with movement and light. Day and night didn’t matter in space, so in a normal rotation a third of the engineering staff could be on duty at any given time and the labs were rarely empty. Shore leave was the only time the labs were ever empty, but there were always a handful of nerds more interested in their latest project than seeing the local alien sights. Usually, Jans was one of them, and Randall would take advantage of the lull to hang around and bother him. But that wasn’t how it had gone tonight.

Jans’s workstation was over on the far wall, portable screens hiding a tarp-draped lump the size of a large dog. Randall slipped into the makeshift cubicle and pulled the tarp off, exposing a mass of twisted wires and plastic and circuit boards, and what looked like half a replicator, but sort of- exploded, and wired into the rest.

This struck Randall as one of the most hilarious things he’d ever seen, and he had to work hard to suppress his giggles. He vaguely hoped that Jans hadn’t stolen a replicator from somewhere and dissected it. Randall decided that he’d be better off not knowing, and also that sitting down seemed like a great idea right now. Possibly the best idea he’d ever had. The ground was so nice and smooth and-

The device loomed above him, mangled and accusing. Randall looked away.

And here was the crux of the problem. Randall was a linguist. And while that was great for things like puns and really awesome swearing, it meant that when Jans ran into problems like this, technical problems, engineering problems, there was nothing Randall could really do to help.

He could sometimes get diagnostics out of his manual, if he was subtle and secretive enough about it, but it was nothing the normal workspace tools couldn’t tell them given enough time and opportunity. Randall could sweet talk the circuits into behaving, and occasionally did, but that would only work if he understood what they were supposed to do, and right now Randall just- didn’t.

This would be easier if Jans knew about Randall’s wizardry, if Randall could talk to the machines and translate back and forth. Maybe someday Randall would tell him. But, not yet. Not right now.

In some other time, maybe, some other place, maybe Randall had told Jans, maybe they’d already figured it out.

Maybe, in that place, Jans and Randall had managed to get this machine working.

Randall sat up too quickly, reeling slightly and groping in the air for his manual.

Just a quick jaunt, just one universe over. He could sleep it off before his next shift started- and there. Randall found the section in his manual for inter-dimensional travel. It was finicky, but Randall had always been good at this stuff. It was mostly a matter of sweet-talking the local world wall into take a short break, just for a moment or two, just enough that he could slip through the cracks.

Silence fell around him, then darkness, then light.

———

“You okay?” Randall’s voice asked, and Randall flailed slightly when he realized that he wasn’t the one asking the question.

“It’s fine,” said Jans, and Randall groped about, reaching for him. A hand caught his, held, squeezed reassuringly.

Cross-universe travel was always disorienting, but it had never been this bad before- maybe Randall had been slightly more drunk than he’d been admitting.

“Here,” said Randall’s own voice, and Randall grabbed the glass of water that was shoved into his free hand, staring blearily up into- his own face. Randall looked down and their clasped identical hands, and let go awkwardly.

Right. Interdimensional travel. That meant duplicates. He was lucky this version of himself wasn’t freaking out, to be honest. He can’t have gone too far over though, so maybe this Randall sometimes spent time hopping universes too. Maybe they’d even met, way back when. Randall decided not to think too hard about it.

The other version of himself raised an eyebrow. “Hey,” that Randall said, and hearing his own voice was _weird_ , it would never stop being weird, “Glad to have you back with us.”

Randall sipped the water to avoid answering. They appeared to be in the other Randall’s quarters. The furniture about how he liked it, and most of his same things scattered around. It wasn’t the quarters he had back in his own verse, and the bed was extra wide, and there were a lot of things he didn’t recognize, or recognized only vaguely…

“So what brings you here?” asked Jans, and Randall figured he might as well do what he’d come here to do.

“Right. Yeah. You know that one project? With the sublimation matrix?” When Jans nodded, Randal continued, staring towards the far corner with vague embarrassment. Apparently room clutter was a universal constant, and there were an awful lot of boxers draped around. “Did you ever get it working?”

Jans shot the other Randall a meaningful look, and the other Randall grinned. “I told you so,” he said, elbowing Jans in the side. “I told you he was trying to cheat, I totally called it was something not-actually-me would do!”

Jans smiled and laughed and leaned into the other Randall, and apparently that was a universal constant too. Randall tried not to stare too obviously, but when the other Randall leaned back into Jans, and took his hand, and held it, and when they looked at each other like _that_ …

Randall was seized with a sudden jealousy, for what this other version of himself had, and for what Randall himself still lacked.

Those were Jans’ things, scattered all over his room. Or vice versa maybe, or maybe it was just _their_ room, no imbalance or banter about it.

“Oh.” Randall said, and he blamed the alcohol that he’d said anything at all. “Oh, that’s-“

“Look, you need to get back,” said the other Randall. “I know what you’re looking for, but you already have it. Get outa here before you start warping bits of spacetime that won’t warp back, okay?”

Randall realized the glass of water was still in his hand, and finished it, and put it down on the bedside table. There was an alarm clock there, and an inexplicable pile of shoelaces, and a picture of the other him and this version ofJans with their arms around each other’s shoulders, grinning at each other like they knew what it was to stop, knew what it was to be without each other, and they just didn’t want to. Randall wondered how _his_ Jans was doing, if he’d woken up yet, if he was feeling okay or needed food or-

“Right,” Randall said, standing and pulling out his spell diagram, vaguely noticing that this Jans didn’t bat an eye as he spread it around himself. He’d been right, then, this Jans knew about his wizardry. “I understand. I’m sorry for bothering you.”

Other Randall laughed. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out,” he said, and Randall looked up from activating the return matrix of his spell diagram to see what he could only assume was the smirk Jans always complained about, “But I bet the files Jans uploaded to your manual just now will sure help.”

The last thing Randall saw before this universe faded out was his other self looping an arm around Jans’ shoulder, and Jans looking up at him with a radiant smile.

———

Randall’s commanding officer found him passed out of the floor of the Engineering Lab just before the start of the first shift. She shook him awake none too gently.

“Get your shit together kid,” she said, and Randall nodded meekly and retreated to his own (solitary) quarters to sift through the data dump the other Jans had left him with. Randall grabbed the most likely looking portion and messaged it to his own Jans, asking if Jans had seen it and suggesting it might be worth a try.

“Good luck,” the other Jans had written in a note right at the end of the data, and Randall didn’t know if it was about the project or his wizardry or their relationship, or some unknown aspect of the future, but when Randall went to bed his heart ached in places he hadn’t even realized weren’t full.

(He didn’t feel quite okay again until the next time he saw Jans’ smile)


End file.
